Swansea students raise over £4,000 for charity

University students in Swansea have raised over £4,000 for the British Heart Foundation from the comfort of their accommodation, by donating preloved items they no longer want or need.

Residents at St Davids, student accommodation in Swansea owned and operated by Student Roost, donated 312 bags of unwanted electrical items, books, clothing, and furniture they no longer need to the British Heart Foundation’s ‘Pack for Good’ campaign’.

Since the start of the 2021/22 academic year, from October 2021 to September 2022, residents at over 50 Student Roost properties in 22 cities across the UK have donated over 4,700 bags of unwanted items, which is the equivalent weight of 140 African male elephants.

Donated items are distributed to British Heart Foundation shops on high streets across the UK, and sales of items donated by Student Roost residents since October 2021 has reached more than £67,000.

Student Roost has been a national partner of the British Heart Foundation since 2021 but have been supporting the ‘Pack for Good’ campaign since 2015. In two academic years, 2020/21 and 2021/22, Student Roost residents and team members have raised £105,266 for the charity, and to date have raised over £300,000.

Donation bags and drop-off boxes were delivered to over 50 Student Roost properties in cities including Birmingham, Liverpool, Swansea, Belfast and Edinburgh. Regular collections were arranged to ensure donation points were left clear, and the donated items could start making their way to one of 700 British Heart Foundation stores to be sold.

As well as urging residents to donate their quality unwanted items during the check-out periods, Student Roost also encouraged its residents and team members to lend an ‘elfing’ hand over the festive season and donate their free time to volunteer in British Heart Foundation shops across the UK. In just one day, 50 residents and team members pledged their time to support the charity during Christmas.

Launched in 2012, the ‘Pack for Good’ campaign, in partnership with universities, councils, and private student accommodation providers across the UK, encourages students who have finished their studies or moving to different accommodation to donate quality items they no longer need, to stop waste going to landfill and to raise vital funds for the British Heart Foundation.

Each year, the British Heart Foundation saves over 57,000 tonnes of unwanted items, included 13,000 tonnes of clothing, from going to landfill. The recycling and reuse of donated items prevents 13,000 tonnes of C02 emissions being released into the atmosphere.

Around 7.6 million people in the UK live with a heart and circulatory diseases, and in the UK, someone tragically dies every 3 minutes from a heart or circulatory condition. The funds raised by donations from Student Roost residents can help the British Heart Foundation to fund the support of a PhD student, an hour of research by early career scientists, buy test tubes to help researchers with their research into inherited heart conditions, and help researchers visualise faulty heart valves under the microscope.

Stacey Harley-Sayles, Regional Operations Manager at Student Roost said:

I’m immensely proud of the Student Roost residents in Swansea for donating their unwanted items to the ‘Pack for Good’ campaign, helping to raise £4,000 for the British Heart Foundation.

“We’ve supported the campaign since 2015 and have been a British Heart Foundation national partner since 2021, yet each year the entire Student Roost team is in awe of the amount of funds our residents raise and the thousands of tonnes of waste we stop going to landfill.  

“To date, Student Roost residents and team members have raised over £300,000 for the British Heart Foundation, and we intend to continue to raise even more in the years to come to help this vital charity in their lifesaving research into heart disease.”

Amanda Purkiss, BHF University Account Manager, said:

“We have been delighted with the response from our national partnership with Student Roost and their incredible support.

“Our shops rely on donations to continue raising money to fund lifesaving research. Thanks to the generous donations from students and staff in Student Roost properties, we have been able to provide our UK wide stores with items to sell to help us continue our lifesaving research.”